In Annapolis, you can walk through centuries of African-American heritage in a couple of hours

Just a tenth of a mile apart, two Annapolis monuments mark milestones in Maryland's African-American history.

Down at City Dock, the Kunta Kinte-Alex Haley Memorial is the only display in the nation to commemorate the name and entry point of an enslaved African arriving in the United States.

A few blocks away, the statue of a young Thurgood Marshall, a Baltimore native and the U.S. Supreme Court's first black justice, looks out over Lawyers Mall.

The monuments are reminders of deep injustice and the fight for equality. And the events they commemorate are separated by exactly two centuries, as Julie Brasch points out on the walking tour she gives every February during Black History Month.

Kunta Kinte first arrived in Annapolis in 1767, on a slave ship, the Lord Lingonier. In 1967, Thurgood Marshall was appointed to the Supreme Court.

Brasch, a guide with Annapolis Tours by Watermark, leads visitors through the city's cobbled streets on the two-hour tour that highlights Annapolis' African American heritage.

By Matthew Cole / Capital Gazette

William and Andrea Montague, of Hagerstown, looks over a copy of the Declaration of Indepence during an African American Heritage tour through downtown Annapolis on Saturday afternoon.

William and Andrea Montague, of Hagerstown, looks over a copy of the Declaration of Indepence during an African American Heritage tour through downtown Annapolis on Saturday afternoon. (By Matthew Cole / Capital Gazette)

The tour starts at the docks, where, Brasch says, there was no auction block. Slaves were instead sold in pubs, such as Middleton Tavern and Reynolds Tavern, both of which serve food and drinks today.

Also by the water, Market House was established as a place for people to sell their wares, and was a meeting place for slaves, who could trade news as they ran errands. Some were allowed to sell chickens they had raised at the market.

Moving up Prince George Street, the tour passes homes inhabited by some of Annapolis' early notables, who were also slaveowners. One of them, William Paca, was governor of Maryland and signed the Declaration of Independence.

By Matthew Cole / Capital Gazette

Sara Clayton, of Annapolis, reads the Kunta Kintey-Alex Haley Memorial, with her mother, Suzanne Coursen, of Stroudsburg, PA during an African American Heritage tour through downtown Annapolis on Saturday afternoon.

"How could they reconcile that in their minds?" Brasch asks of men like Paca, who fought for liberty but didn't consider African-Americans worthy of the same rights.

Her conclusion: "They saw value in holding slaves because growing up they were taught slaves were like inanimate objects."

James Brice, another former Maryland governor, kept careful notes on the tons of brick and mortar he used to build his stately house on East Street. But in his inventory, he doesn't name the slaves who did the work.

Brasch shares the history of the houses Paca, Brice and others owned, but focuses also on the stories of African-Americans who made a mark on those same buildings in later years.

Paca's house, for example, later became Carvel Hall, a hotel where many of the state's delegates and senators stayed during the legislative session. Marcellus Hall, a black man, worked there as maitre d' and became the trusted adviser to many of those politicians.

The Patrick Creagh House, also on Prince George Street, was home to a businessman and shipbuilder who is believed to have sold slaves behind his home. Later, the building was sold to a free black man, John Smith, who founded a stagecoach company that carried people between Annapolis and Washington, D.C. Smith's wife, Lucy, ran a well-loved bakery.

Though Maryland didn't break away from the Union during the Civil War, the state's agrarian culture meant a lot of its inhabitants — including many Annapolis residents — had Southern sympathies.

Just one Annapolitan voted for President Abraham Lincoln in the 1860 election, according to Brasch, and he didn't fare much better in Anne Arundel County, where Lincoln scored just three votes. When war broke out, Lincoln sent troops to the State House to ensure Maryland didn't join the Confederacy.

The state's flag combines symbols of both the north and south: Union sympathizers carried the black and gold, while Confederate sympathizers displayed red and white flags during the war. The two were combined only afterward, when a Marylander eager for wounds to heal cobbled together a new flag and flew it during a parade.

Some of the tour's other notable stops include the Naval Academy, which did not have a black graduate until 1949, and St. John's College, the first liberal arts college in the South to admit African-American students.

Brasch says her goal is to "focus on how people who lived during slavery and mass discrimination were able to rise above."

And though the days of slavery are gone, one of the tour's themes is still relevant today: "Even though we don't enslave people, we judge people," she says. "We could all be a little kinder."